The Adventures of a Special Correspondent eBook

“Go under it!” said I. “A tunnel
fifteen kilometres long is a mere nothing! There
will be no English Parliament to oppose it as there
is to oppose that between Dover and Calais! It
will all be done some day, all—­and that
will justify the vein:

“Omnia jam fieri quae posse negabam.”

My sample of Latin erudition was only understood by
Major Noltitz, and I heard Caterna say to his wife:

“That is volapuk.”

“There is no doubt,” said Pan Chap, “that
the Emperor of China has been well advised in giving
his hand to the Russians instead of the English.
Instead of building strategic railways in Manchouria,
which would never have had the approbation of the
czar, the Son of Heaven has preferred to continue
the Transcaspian across China and Chinese Turkestan.”

“And he has done wisely,” said the major.
“With the English it is only the trade of India
that goes to Europe, with the Russians it is that of
the whole Asiatic continent.”

I look at Sir Francis Trevellyan. The color heightens
on his cheeks, but he makes no movement. I ask
if these attacks in a language he understands perfectly
will not oblige him to speak out. And yet I should
have been very much embarrassed if I had had to bet
on or against it.

Major Noltitz then resumed the conversation by pointing
out the incontestable advantages of the Transasiatic
with regard to the trade between Grand Asia and Europe
in the security and rapidity of its communications.
The old hatreds will gradually disappear under European
influence, and in that respect alone Russia deserves
the approbation of every civilized nation. Is
there not a justification for those fine words of
Skobeleff after the capture of Gheok Tepe, when the
conquered feared reprisals from the victors:
“In Central Asian politics we know no outcasts?”

“And in that policy,” said the major,
“lies our superiority over England.”

“No one can be superior to the English.”

Such was the phrase I expected from Sir Francis Trevellyan—­the
phrase I understand English gentlemen always use when
traveling about the world. But he said nothing.
But when I rose to propose a toast to the Emperor
of Russia and the Russians, and the Emperor of China
and the Chinese, Sir Francis Trevellyan abruptly left
the table. Assuredly I was not to have the pleasure
of hearing his voice to-day.

I need not say that during all this talk the Baron
Weissschnitzerdoerfer was fully occupied in clearing
dish after dish, to the extreme amazement of Doctor
Tio-King. Here was a German who had never read
the precepts of Cornaro, or, if he had read them,
transgressed them in the most outrageous fashion.

For the same reason, I suppose, neither Faruskiar
nor Ghangir took part in it, for they only exchanged
a few words in Chinese.

But I noted rather a strange circumstance which did
not escape the major.